


rotted in your brain

by whalefairyfandom12



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Explicit, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, eliott centered, takes place after remember
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-02 22:04:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21168599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalefairyfandom12/pseuds/whalefairyfandom12
Summary: It’s the first time he sees him--Lucas. Of course, his name comes later and so does everything else, but for the first time in a year Eliott feels something other than empty. He’s not sure what it is that draws him to the other boy; maybe it’s his unabashed laughter, or his smile, or the way he gesticulates as he tells one of his friends about some party he went to, but Eliott can’t look away.





	rotted in your brain

**Author's Note:**

> I think I started this almost a year ago haha, but I was inspired by some recent events to finally finish. Title from the song Monster by dodie. 
> 
> (Casual disclaimer that unfortunately I don't know anything about raccoons--I'm more of a firefly person.)

The first raccoon Eliott ever saw was decapitated. It’s head was artfully placed behind a picture frame, seeming to peer out the window. A quick glance, however, easily revealed the lack of a body.

He’d never seen a dead animal before. 

His mother had been horrified and ushered him out of the gallery, but Eliott had gone to the library the next day and checked out every book on raccoons he could find. He’d felt an odd sense of kinship with the dismembered animal and spent lunch poring over the pages, tracing the outline of each picture. It was the sort of thing friends might make fun of, but luckily he doesn’t have any.

This is where it starts. 

Raccoons are small and intelligent, able to problem solve and remember, They can fit in small spaces and travel during the night, wearing a mask like some kind of superhero. 

(Also, they only have a lifespan of a few years which he sometimes thinks would be preferable.

  
  


This is where it ends.)

Contrary to common belief, Eliott hadn’t been _ trying _to kill himself. It just kind of...happened. He’d just wanted everything to stop--for his brain to shut the fuck up and the panic drawing the air out of his lungs until they burned to fuck off. 

Lucille doesn’t understand. 

  
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks, and her voice betrays her hurt as hard as she tries to mask it. “Jesus Eliott--I don’t understand.”

Eliott has a shiny new label now: bipolar, and so that’s what he tells Lucille. The psychiatrist had diagnosed him with an air of finality, as if now that he knew where he was broken he could glue it back together. (“We’ll get you medicated and back out there in no time!” the doctor had said, clapping him on the shoulder with a saccharine grin. Eliott had told him to go fuck himself.)

“So the Quran, all of it, it was just a side effect,” Lucille says, looking relieved. “That’s good.”

Eliott stares at her incredulously. His hospital band is digging into his wrist and the entire room smells like antiseptic. “How is any of this _ good _?”

“Well, not good,” Lucille says. “But you have an answer now. That has to count for something.” Eliott doesn’t say anything. She sighs, reaching into her bag and tossing him a familiar looking stuffed animal. “Brian’s missed you.” 

Eliott’s fingers twitch, reaching for the animal. They brush against the raccoon’s fur, and he pulls it closer. “Thank you.” 

“I miss you too.” Lucille sits on the edge of his bed, fidgeting with Brian’s ears. “I’m here for you, Eliott. Even if you don’t believe it right now.” 

(He believes she believes it.) 

Maybe it’s a little childish considering he’s almost eighteen, but Eliott buries his face in Brian’s fur anyway. It smells like laundry detergent and home, and he swallows down the sudden lump in his throat. He misses his bed--misses sleeping somewhere that’s not a twin mattress and staring at walls that aren’t white. He wants to go home as much as he doesn’t, because at home there are questions he can’t answer and people to disappoint by existing. He can’t stay here, though, even if he wanted to, and so he’s left with a conundrum. 

“I’ll never understand why you like raccoons so much,” Lucille says. Eliott falls back onto his pillow, dragging Brian’s tail over his face. “They’re cute, but still.”

He’s not sure what she wants him to say. He just...does. Raccoons are scavengers and live in small communities. They mind their own business and stay out of sight. Their existence doesn’t have to equate to more than the sum of these facts, and they’re all the happier for it.

Lucille sighs again, leaning in to kiss him. He turns his head and her lips land on his forehead instead. “I love you,” she says softly, even though they both know she shouldn’t. 

Lucille is like a cat, graceful and elegant and beautiful. To some she might come across as aloof; sharp and ready to lash out in self-defense, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. She cares about everything, enough to break her heart over and over again over causes she’ll never win and people that aren’t worth her time. Eliott is a perfect example of this. 

“I love you too,” he says quietly. He does love Lucille, and part of him always will. He’s just not sure if that’s enough anymore. 

A raccoons lifespan is longer in captivity, and in a zoo they can easily make it to twenty years of age. That’s what Eliott is now, the pills that rattle in his hand every morning reminding him that as much as he _ wants _ he’s still confined to the limits of his brain. He takes them, of course, because he’s not completely stupid, and so despite his attempts otherwise he thrives in captivity. 

(‘Thrives’ is a relative term, but even if he still wants to die at least he hasn’t tried to. Again, anyway.)

He starts a new school in January and he wants to disappear. Everything is sterile and reminds him of the hospital, color bleaching out of him the longer he stays. Imane tries to catch his eye, but that’s not a topic he ever plans on breaching so he hurries inside. 

It’s the first time he sees him--_Lucas. _ Of course, his name comes later and so does everything else, but for the first time in a year Eliott feels something other than empty. He’s not sure what it is that draws him to the other boy; maybe it’s his unabashed laughter, or his smile, or the way he gesticulates as he tells one of his friends about some party he went to, but Eliott can’t look away. 

Lucas is, in many ways, the opposite of Lucille. While Lucille is gentle at first but with claws that can bite at a moments notice, Lucas is bristly on first approach but softer than anyone Eliott thinks he’s met. He’s unafraid to feel, and perhaps it’s this honesty that makes him unable to stay away. 

“So why raccoons?” Lucas asks the first time they hang out, and Eliott looks at him. This blond haired boy who thinks everything is weird but himself is a tangle of contradictions. 

“Raccoons are awesome,” Eliott says. “Plus, they wear masks.” He grins, mimicking the shadowing of a raccoon's fur. It’s as honest an answer as he thinks he can give, and he changes the subject as quickly as he can. 

Lucas means _ light _and raccoons are nocturnal. Considering this, it shouldn’t be a surprise when it all goes to shit. Somehow it still is. 

It happens in flashes.

He doesn’t end up in a hospital this time, but Lucille and his parents have him on what he dubs ‘suicide watch.’ (He thinks he’d prefer the hospital.) The only thing he wants is Lucas, but when he’d asked Lucille if he was okay she’d simply shaken her head. 

So he’d run away. 

La Petite Ceinture had been _ his _ for a long time, but as soon as the bridge comes into view the ghost of Lucas’s laughter echoes through the tunnel. 

Eliott trails his hand along the graffiti, concrete cold against his fingertips. He’s not sad, exactly. Frankly he’s not much of anything. He sits behind one of the pillars, head thumping against the wall. He’s existed before Lucas and he knows he’ll exist after. It’s just that he doesn’t want to. 

He wonders if this is how it’s always going to be. One step forward and twenty steps back. He sinks deeper into the wall and his brain sinks deeper into its thoughts until all that’s left is a tangle of pathetic self-loathing. He is not his thoughts, but his thoughts are him, and there are good things in the world but not inside his head and he’s just so tired of treading through his own brain. 

Drowning isn’t as bad as the moment when your head breaks water and you think you’re saved, only to realize you’re breathing carbon monoxide instead of oxygen. 

He doesn’t move, not even when Lucas finds his occupied corpse and presses cold lips to his forehead. The hand that reaches for his is trembling, and as much as he wants to reassure Lucas he can barely reassure himself.

“You’re not alone,” Lucas says, and Eliott wants to believe him so much it hurts. 

He helps him up and guides him away from the tunnel. Eliott’s feet drag against the pavement with each step, and it’s easier to close his eyes and follow Lucas's lead. He's not sure where they're going, but the other boy is moving with enough conviction for the both of them. He's only a little surprised when they reach Lucas's flat. The stairs to the front door are slick with dew, and he barely makes it to the sofa before his legs give out. 

“I should go,” he mumbles a few minutes later. (Or maybe it's a few years.) His voice is almost inaudible from disuse. 

“What?” Lucas pauses from where he’s stirring a cup of hot chocolate. “What are you talking about?”

Eliott swings his legs off the couch, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. He’s warmed up enough that he thinks he can go...somewhere that’s not here. Anywhere that’s not here. He reaches blindly for his sweatshirt but Lucas’s fingers wrap around his wrist, halting his movements. 

“What are you doing?”

Eliott looks at him uncomprehendingly. “I’m leaving.”

Lucas sets his jaw. “You’re not going anywhere.” He stops, tone softening. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. You can leave, if you want. But...stay. Please.” His eyes are wide, lips parted and plea echoed in his expression. 

Eliott hesitates. He really is tired, and as long as he leaves in the morning he supposes a few hours won’t make much difference. “Okay.”

Lucas smiles. “Okay,” he echoes. He sets a mug in front of Eliott, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders. “I’ll be here.”

Contrary to his original intentions, Eliott spends the next few days at the flat. If he weren’t so tired he’d be self-conscious about hogging the couch. But he _ is _ tired, so he closes his eyes against Lucas’ concern and Mickaël’s judgement and falls back to sleep. 

He wakes up periodically; rarely long enough to exchange more than a few words. The fatigue is always the worst part of a depressive episode. Some days he feels so detached his lips are a stranger’s and the words they try to shape a foreign language. 

It takes three days before his first Okay Day. He watches a _Star Wars_ marathon with Manon and even manages to laugh once or twice. When Lucas gets back from school they throw the duvet over the back of the couch in a mimicry of a blanket fort. They hide under the canopy and watch a few episodes of some Norwegian show Lucas likes which is pretty alright. Then Lucas gives him a blowjob which is really alright. 

The fort smells like sex and there’s a patch of cum drying on Eliott’s thigh but they curl together anyway. Eliott runs a hand through Lucas’s hair, the familiar smell of shampoo and laundry detergent tickling his nose. 

The other boy hums, tracing a lazy finger over his chest. The motion gives him the strength to wet his lips and say “I need to go home. Just for a few days.” 

Lucas nods, looking unsurprised. “Are you going to be okay?”

Eliott hesitates. “I’ll be,” he says, which he thinks is close enough. 

Lucas nods again, grabbing and hugging him with a fierceness that aches. Part of him--a bigger part than he wants to admit, wants to stay here forever. Lay intertwined until they’re indistinguishable from one another and the past few weeks are nothing more than hazy memory. But he can’t. Not forever, anyway. 

“Why am I a hedgehog?” Lucas asks suddenly. 

“They look prickly at first, but unlike animals like porcupines their spines aren’t barbed or poisonous. They’re actually incredibly friendly and intelligent, and like to roll into a ball. Also,” Eliott continues, flicking him on the nose. “They’re cute.”

Lucas pulls him into a kiss, fingers curling around the hair at the nape of his neck. Eliott cups his cheek, drawing him closer still with his free hand. They don’t linger too long, but Lucas presses their foreheads together as he pulls away. 

“And you’re a raccoon,” he says. “Why?”

Eliott runs a hand over his face. He doesn’t even know where to start. Lucille had always listened to his raccoon tangents with an air of good natured humor, but she never really understood. He doesn’t know why it’s so vital that Lucas understands, but it is. “They’re nocturnal. Smart, but not in a way we understand. For a long time people thought raccoons were solitary animals, but it turns out they are social. They’re not native to Europe, but now they’re stuck here." He exhales. "It’s stupid.” 

“It’s not stupid,” Lucas says softly, and Eliott hears the _ I love you _ in the careful brush of lips against his eyelashes. “Maybe raccoons aren’t native to Europe, but that doesn’t mean they can't belong.” 

Eliott presses their palms together, fingers interlocking. “I love you too” is what he means, but what comes out instead is “Thank you.” 

Lucas smiles, and Eliott thinks maybe he understands anyway. 


End file.
